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bb88

You're not wrong but what else is there? In 1994/5 IRC was awesome. In 2021, IRC sorta kinda sucks.

They have to start somewhere...

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Discourse?

https://www.discourse.org

And the difference to Discord is what?

Host it yourself.

Sorry, I've got confused and mistaken it for Disqus.

Discourse is of course a good option.

Matrix?

Matrix is for group chats where Discord is for communities. Discord allows you to easily spin up the equivalent of an IRC / Matrix server with a few clicks. Discord is optimized towards the idea of decentralized ownership where each community has their own server as opposed to just a chat room which is often the case with IRC or Matrix.

> Discord is optimized towards the idea of decentralized ownership

Sorry, I just did a spit-take. Did you mean distributed? Discord is decidedly centralized.

Decentralizing the hosting of the servers leads to a poor UX. In the past setting up your own IRC server was really confusing for the average user. With discord the process is much easier since they abstract away the complexity by hosting it for you. It's decentralized because there is no central discord server. A bunch of different people run their own discord server and you are free to choose whoever server you want provided you have an invite.

I think this is difficult because discord have changed the meaning of the word server for it’s usage. From a technical perspective discord is definitely centralised. I think you mean the user experience is more democratised maybe? Perhaps that also isn’t the correct word.

I've not used matrix. Can you create a url to your matrix group for others to easily join, and without spinning anything up on AWS?

Yes, it's possible, but only for a single room.

That would be a problem for more than say more than 20 or 30 users.

I believe Matrix spaces are very much like Discord "servers".

So what are you suggesting? "We want the web to be user-owned and operated, but we don't want to own or operate anything" ?

Not in the slightest.

Who hurt you?

Yeah, IRC shows it's age, but it's easy to get connected and talking, no phone number verification or required account creation, or other byzantine verification process.

Zulip ?

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